This tag challenge was created to talk about something very important and very sensitive. Reading it might make you uncomfortable, and, if you are sensitive to certain triggers, it might make you more than just uncomfortable, but it is also crucially important for you to read this if you are uninformed about what sexual harassment is or what to do when it happens, and it is also crucially important for you to pass this on if any of your Wattpad followers are uninformed.

If you are one of the people who are sensitive to this trigger and you are still reading, I understand if you would like to stop. If you choose to continue anyway, I would like to deeply thank you for helping us to spread awareness to others.

For everyone else: I sincerely hope you don’t stop reading this chapter just because it’s unpleasant to think about. It’s because it’s a difficult topic that it is so important for us to be taking this effort. By reading this and passing it on, you might end up making a world of difference in your life and in the lives of others.

 (The author of this is serious. This is a very heavy topic that can cause some triggers. Please, if you are sensitive to that kind of thing, do not go on!)

I’m sure you’ve all heard of sexual harassment, but there can be a lot of confusion and misinformation about what actually “counts” as sexual harassment. A person who is sexually harassing others might swear up and down that he or she was only joking, that she or he thought that the other person really wanted what was being done, or that what he or she did was perfectly normal and acceptable. A person who is sexually harassing someone will tend to do everything in her or his power to continue controlling the victim, including persuading him or her that what is being done to her or him isn’t sexual harassment at all. Such a person will also tend to do everything in his or her power to convince other people that there is nothing wrong with what is being done. And sometimes these people can be so good at manipulation that witnesses, bystanders, and even the victims will believe these lies.

That’s why it’s important to know exactly what sexual harassment is and to know it so well that you will never allow yourself to be manipulated into thinking otherwise. Harassment is any kind of behavior that disturbs or upsets another person. It’s characteristically repetitive, meaning that the behavior happens over and over again. Sexual harassment is any behavior of a sexual or romantic nature that disturbs or upsets another person.

Now, the most important part of that explanation is this: “disturbs or upsets another person”. Sexual harassment is not defined according to what the behavior is. You can’t look up some list that will tell you what specific actions count and what do not. Nor can you look up a list of what words or gestures count and what do not. It counts if it disturbs or upsets a victim. The person who gets to decide when it counts as sexual harassment isn’t the person who did it. It isn’t any person who witnessed it or heard about it and wants to give an opinion. The only person who gets to say whether it counts as sexual harassment is the person who suffered because of it. If it is making the victim uncomfortable, it counts.

That being said, we can give some general examples of what sexual harassment might look like on a site like Wattpad. First of all, sexual harassment can occur without any actual sex being involved. It might be the case that a person is sending messages that repeatedly ask the victim to give up his or her address so that they can meet there and have sex. It might be the case that all of the interactions are online and the person is pressuring the victim to send nude photos or to engage in sexual roleplaying.

It might not even be as closely linked to sex as that. The word “sexual” can also refer to things that most of us would commonly refer to as “romantic”. It can be sexual harassment if the victim is being pressured into simply going on a date or returning feelings of affection. Sexual harassment might start out looking just like an innocent confession of romantic interest where the person being confessed to does not return the interest. It might not become a problem until the victim begins to feel uncomfortable or upset because he or she has already told the other person that she or he is not interested and still that person continues to send messages asking the victim to reconsider or trying to pressure the victim into saying something romantic in return or agreeing to start dating. It can even count if the person doesn’t seem to be asking for anything but is still sending romantic messages after the victim has asked for it to stop. If the person is saying or doing anything after the victim has said that it upsets him or her, it is definitely harassment.

What do you do if you find that you’re being harassed online? If a person has done something that she or he might not realize made you upset or uncomfortable (especially if it only happened once), start by speaking up. You need to clearly tell the person how it made you feel and ask for it to never happen again. If this is enough to make the person apologize and he or she really doesn’t do anything like what happened ever again, then you can feel good about maybe having put a stop to things before they even turned into harassment.

If, on the other hand, the person continues even after you’ve spoken up, it’s time to start protecting yourself. If the person is sending you messages on Wattpad, you can block him or her by going to her or his profile, clicking or tapping on the three dots next to “message”, and selecting “Mute”. For more information on what this means, see this link: https://support.wattpad.com/hc/en-us/articles/203133434-Mute-or-Unmute-a-User-

You should also think about protecting other people so that they don’t become victims of the same behavior. You can find the option to report someone right underneath the mute option. More details can be found here: https://support.wattpad.com/hc/en-us/articles/203444030-How-to-Report-a-User

It is very important for you to do everything you can to protect yourself from a person who is sexually harassing you. Even if the person is or was your friend, it is never acceptable to allow sexual harassment to continue. It will only cause you more suffering while encouraging the person who is causing the suffering to continue hurting you. It might make him or her believe that what she or he is doing isn’t all that bad or even that it isn’t wrong at all. At the very least, it will show him or her that nothing bad will happen if she or he continues doing it (because he or she obviously doesn’t care about your suffering if it’s still going on after you’ve been clear about it), so why would she or he ever stop?

It’s often extremely difficult for the victims of sexual harassment to talk about what happened, but it can often be a very good thing to do if it helps you or anyone else. If the person who was harassing you keeps popping back up with different accounts or is communicating outside of Wattpad with other people that you know, you might be able to save someone else from becoming a victim.

If you’re a witness to sexual harassment online or if a person being harassed has told you about what is happening, it is very important for you to offer support to the victim in whatever way you can. If you witnessed sexual harassment happening, you should report the person. If a victim is telling you about what happened, you should encourage her or him to report it and take every other action described above. You should not spread around the story to anybody else without permission from the victim. As I mentioned, it can be extremely difficult for the victim to talk about what happened, and putting the story out in the open can actually cause more pain. Don’t speak for the victim, encourage him or her to speak for her or himself. The only exception to this is if you happen to be in a position where it is your responsibility to take action in order to protect other people. If the harasser is part of a group account on Wattpad, for example, you might have to report the problem to the leader(s) of the account so that appropriate action can be taken to protect everyone else in the group. Another example would be if you know someone who might be at risk and you want to warn her or him before anything bad happens. Even if you do this, though, you should only give as much information and proof as is absolutely needed to protect people, and you should talk to as few people as possible unless you have permission from the victim.

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(The above was written by d_s_t_e)

This is one heavy topic.

For those of you not aware, in a part of the Pokémon community on Wattpad and Discord, there was recently a case of sexual harasment. Thankfully, I was not directly harmed or affected in any way, although I know a few who were. I do not know all the details, nor do I want to, but this event led to the creation of this tag by d_s_t_e.

We are asked, if comfortable, to share the experiences that we have with harasment, if any.

I have two stories that both are not as heavily consequenced, at least for me personally.

First, my mother. She, under circumstances that I do not know nor wish to find out in fear of ruining my relationship with my parents, was a rape victim, which was a main contributing factor to a suicide attempt of hers when I was younger.

A younger me from two years ago would have regretfully been fine if this attempt had succeeded. However, because it did not, I was able to mostly repair my relationship with my mother and we now talk as mother and daughter should.

Second, a personal experience with a lighter ending.

My boyfriend. The one I talk about so much and truly at this moment in time love? Very close, if not entierly harassment at one point in our relationship.

The thing about harassment is that there is a fine line between what is and isn't. Obviously, advances towards sex of any kind, asking for nudity, etc. are considered harassment, but what about certain physical advances, like touching in places that aren't considered private or lingering too long on a kiss? Surely there are some of those that might be okay?

What about when the harasser doesn't know that their victim is feeling displeasure or discomfort? If the victim makes no comment and treats the advances as if they were wanted?

I had the displeasure of entering this gray area over the summer on our band trip.

We tended to sit next to each other on the bus whenever possible, which in hindsight was a poor decision on my part. This time on the bus was spent doing many things and activities, with the longer, more droning bus rides provoking more physical contact.

Many advances were made that I would rather not get into. However, these advances were eventually put to a halt when I was being called a hoe, thot, and slut who was only part of the band to spend time and make out with my boyfriend. This knocked some sense into him and a strong wave of regret into me that altogether destroyed any physical contact besides hugs for the rest of that trip.

After this trip there was about a month of a very busy summer on both of our ends that limited seeing each other only twice before school began again. When school started, no one brought up the trip, until last weekend.

At a football game, my best friend, who I spend those games with every year no matter what, had to leave after the first half to prepare for a cross country meet. This left my only friend left at the game to be my boyfriend.

Instead of watching the rest of the game, we wandered around the stands and eventually further away from the school, until we both knew where it could have gone from there.

This is where my story turns for the better. We had a long talk there, about what each of us is and is not physically comfortable with, set up a system for discomfort levels that seems to be working so far, and confessions of what the effects summer had on us.

What happened on that trip was harassment, however, I masked any discomfort I had. While this is not my fault or an excuse for him, it is hard to tell emotion. I understand this after hearing his regrets that I would have never thought were there before. From our Christian standpoint we both hold, it's a sinful weakness and temptation that must be kept in check at all costs, either by the other person or even friends acting as "third wheels". Any remorse and regret that still lingers from that trip is now a reminder of what not to do, that we unfortunately had the hard way.

My experiences with harassment are interesting ones, but every experience is going to be different and an experience worth telling.

The point of this tag is to spread awareness. These can be anywhere. In my small little rural home county, there has been a wave of sex traffickers entering and leaving the area lately, scaring me and many other young people into staying at home instead of being able to go out and enjoy time with friends. That is an entirely different topic, but at its core falls under as a type of sexual harassment.

I will not be tagging anyone, but I strongly encourage others to share this and, if comfortable, share their stories. This is such an awful thing that happens and it needs to stop. A movement on one website may not make much of a difference, but any one person who gains this awareness could be the difference between them experiencing harassment or not.